


Bedtime Story

by yujacheong



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Bickering, F/M, Falling Asleep As A Sign Of Trust, Force Bond (Star Wars), Hurt Kylo Ren, Insomnia, Pre-Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-24
Updated: 2020-05-24
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:07:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24132586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yujacheong/pseuds/yujacheong
Summary: Supreme Leader Kylo Ren can't sleep.His head throbs, sheer exhaustion pressing down upon his temples like electrostatic vises. Palpatine wants her dead; Kylo Ren has other plans. Both involve finding her. Too bad he can’t mind-trick himself to sleep, but that’s not how the Force works. And anyway, truth is, when he’s as tired as this it feels like he doesn’t evenneedto find her, and that’s because…because…She is already with him. Always. To a greater or lesser degree.
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 3
Kudos: 30
Collections: Hurt Comfort Exchange 2020





	Bedtime Story

**Author's Note:**

  * For [intoxicatelou](https://archiveofourown.org/users/intoxicatelou/gifts).



He’s so tired, and he wishes he could fall asleep. But now that he’s actually in bed, he can’t. He just _can’t_. He can’t stop his mind from replaying the awful events of the day. Over and over and over again.

The dead boy had things easy. Kylo Ren realizes that now. Ben Solo had believed that there was a distinction to be drawn between right and wrong. And mostly, if he’s honest, Ben Solo had done as he was told. Well. Most of the time. When it’d really counted.

Supreme Leader Kylo Ren doesn’t have that luxury. Oh, he has experts, advisers. Yes-beings. But he doesn’t trust their judgement. Their sycophancy is a sucking black hole in the center of the galaxy, and he can never tell when they are telling him the truth, or when they are telling him only what they believe he wants to hear.

“Supreme Leader.” Hux on comms. That bastard. “I apologize for disturbing you at this inconveniently late hour, but alas I am afraid – ”

Kylo Ren doesn’t bother rising from bed. He throws an arm out straight. The Force moves through him.

“ – that the Resist – _BZZZZT!_ ”

The intercom sparks and shatters.

Yes, leadership is difficult. And politics is also difficult. His ‘allies’ would betray him in an instant. His enemies surround him on all sides. He has only himself – his own personal truth – to rely upon. And truth is, there _are_ no easy solutions. Even the dead boy had known that – his mother was a politician after all – and thus had preferred the direct route to solutions, carved out with the lit end of a blue lightsaber. The direct route was a luxury Kylo Ren had retained under Snoke.

But Supreme Leader Kylo Ren doesn’t have that luxury anymore.

He has orders to find the girl.

_But beware. She is not who you think she is._

His head throbs, sheer exhaustion pressing down upon his temples like electrostatic vises. Palpatine wants her dead; Kylo Ren has other plans. Both involve finding her. Too bad he can’t mind-trick himself to sleep, but that’s not how the Force works. And anyway, truth is, when he’s as tired as this it feels like he doesn’t even _need_ to find her, and that’s because…because…

She is already with him. Always. To a greater or lesser degree.

‘A lesser degree’ means burning a hole in the farthest corner of his brain like a paramite embedded deep in a moof’s thick hide. ‘A greater degree’ means –

Oh, _now_ , for instance.

“Go away,” he mumbles. He squeezes his eyes resolutely shut and buries his face under the crook of his arm. Yeah, like that ever helps anything. He can no more wish her away than he can wish himself into an easeful sleep.

“Ben,” she says.

“Ben is dead.”

“You don’t say. He’s remarkably talkative for a dead person.”

“No thanks to you. Go away.”

“You know I would if I could.”

Yeah, he does. She can’t always control these strange meetings of theirs, and when he’s this exhausted, neither can he. He sighs and rolls over onto his side, his back to her phantasmal presence. Sleep, how far away you are!

Rey lapses into silence, but he doesn’t need to hear her annoying prattle to know that she’s still there. Something more than imagination and less than sensation informs him that she is perched on the edge of his bed. Idly, he wonders if she’s sitting on her bed too, safely ensconced inside whatever miserable bolt hole the dead boy’s mother has found for her and her sorry excuses for companions, or if the strange psychic bond in the Force which binds them together is intensifying.

He feels tentative fingers in his hair. He jerks, slapping away an arm that isn’t there, and tucks himself into a tight, fetal ball. Yeah, you know what? Her silence is even worse than her prattle. “Fine,” he mumbles into his pillow. “Talk.”

“What do you want me to say?”

He doesn’t actually know, but it occurs to him that she sounds less overtly hostile and aggressive toward him than usual. Which gives him an idea. “Sing me a lullaby,” he says.

He feels Rey stiffen. “I – I don’t know any – ”

Oh, right. Her parents. He hadn’t meant that request as a low blow. “Tell me a bedtime story,” he tries instead.

“I don’t – ”

“Any story. A rumor. Scavengers hear all sorts of interesting things in their line of work.”

She’s resting her chin on her hand, thinking, pensive. She’s a Resistance fighter now; she doesn’t want to give any tactical advantage away. But she can’t get war out of her head, either. “There was a story on Jakku,” she says finally. “It’s how I first learnt about Luke Skywalker. They say he dragged three Imperial Star Destroyers from space, crashing them on the surface with only the power of his mind. Some even swore they’d seen him, riding the bow of one of the Star Destroyers as the friction of planetfall turned it red-, white-hot. They say by doing this he singlehandedly turned the tide of the Battle of Jakku.”

Kylo Ren huffs with amusement. Pulling Star Destroyers out of the sky! Of all things! “Luke wasn’t even _on_ Jakku during that battle.”

“I suppose you would know.” Rey is not offended by him contradicting her on the facts. This _is_ a bedtime story she’s telling him, he realizes. “There were survivors, of course, clawing themselves out of the twisted, smouldering wreckage of those Star Destroyers and into the burning heat of the desert, hundreds of kilometers from the nearest inhabited settlement. But instead of executing them one by one – as they would have done him – Luke Skywalker led them all to safety. They had to journey overland on foot for weeks, and he protected them, fed them, healed their injuries.”

“ _That_ part sounds like Luke.”

He feels Rey nodding vehemently. “Afterward, those survivors renounced their loyalty to the Empire and never went to war again.”

“Hm. You don’t say,” he mumbles. His body feels heavy, his mind fuzzy. Sleep! Sleep is near. At last. And she isn’t doing it…or, rather, she _is_.

In comparison to the sycophantic hypocrites surrounding the Supreme Leader, Rey is a breath of fresh air. She has no pretense; she doesn’t pretend to be anything she is not. And, most importantly, she cannot hide from him. Palpatine doesn’t know what he’s talking about; Kylo Ren knows Rey. And Rey is _exactly_ who he thinks she is. He’s safe with her, as he’s safe with no one else.

He feels her hand on his head, her fingers smoothing the tangles in his hair, and he does not push her away. He accepts the caress. It’s almost like she’s cradling him in her arms. And the last thing he remembers before drifting off into slumber is the brush of her lips against his.


End file.
